“Awake. Shake dreams from your hair my pretty child, my sweet one. Choose the day and choose the sign of your day; the day’s divinity, first thing you see.”

For the last few days I have those words from Jim’s poem playing over and over in my head. I loved the guy, when I was younger. His quest for the meaning of life, his struggles, being so lost, felt familiar.

Sensitive people have it harder in a way. They notice more, they see more, they think more and they feel more. Often on top of that they carry emotions that are not their own – so tuned into their surroundings, that they pick up the garbage others throw all around them. It’s hard to distinguish sometimes – what is theirs and what belongs to the stranger that sat next to them in the bus.

Sensitive people ask questions, that don’t have easy answers. They know there’s so much more to life than the common cycle of eat-work-play-sleep. So they set out for a quest to find the missing piece. They encounter many enemies on the way – doubt, fatigue, loss of hope, anger, desire to just be normal, other people making fun of their search, poisoning them with their own helplessness and negativity.

After many hours, days, weeks, months or years and with too many kilometres behind their belt, some of them find their treasure, often with help of unexpected teachers they bump into on the way. Others, like Jim, don’t have such luck and instead, they have to settle for the fake Gods of Whiskey and Psychedelics, and eventually give up their quest and drown, trying to function in the dysfunctional world.

My sensitivity was a challenge, many times I wished that I was back to living in oblivion to the deeper truths. I wanted the easier way, to simply wake up, do my chores and go to sleep content that I had enough money to put food on the table. But then, my gentle personality became my treasure. My eyes wide open, I walk through the crowd with my head held high, proud of being myself, of being sensitive, of being different. Through my emphatic nature and adventures it took me to, I discovered the true beauty of the simple things – only able to appreciate them once I went to the dark side and back, carrying an understanding of other dimensions in my backpack instead of the pot of gold.

We are all different, after all, but at the same time – we are One. I appreciate my own uniqueness as a part of ever-encompassing Source. I accept each part of me without judgement. I enjoy my quest and the sensitivity that allowed me to take the first step towards Enlightenment.